The Government will "strengthen" the commitment of the unemployed to seek and accept employment in the subsidy reform

It wants to encourage the reintegration of the unemployed into the labor market to fill vacancies and move towards full employment.

MADRID, 28 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Government has proposed to approve "in the coming weeks" the reform of the level of unemployment assistance, that is, the subsidies that the unemployed receive when they have exhausted the contributory benefit, with the intention of encouraging their reintegration into the labor market in the search of the objective of full employment that the Executive has set for this legislature.

As revealed this Monday by the Secretary of State for the Economy and Business Support, Gonzalo García Andrés, at a conference organized by EY, this reform will focus, on the one hand, on "strengthening" the activity agreement that all unemployed people make with public employment services "so that the support provided by the Administration to train them, give them a personalized itinerary and facilitate their insertion into the labor market has reciprocity in the active search for work and in the acceptance of appropriate" employment offers .

The activity agreement, also known as the activity commitment, is the written agreement between the public employment services and the unemployed worker in which the rights and obligations of both parties are established to increase the employability of the latter.

The current law establishes that the rejection of an offer of suitable employment or a training course, without justified cause, by an unemployed person who receives benefits can be punished with the loss of the same for three months the first time, six months in a second time and with extinction if he reoffends on a third occasion.

The Government's idea with this reform of the level of assistance, according to García Andrés, is to "orient the entire system of unemployment benefits towards the reintegration of workers into the labor market", also taking into account the "shortage" of profiles that have been detected both the Public Employment Service (SEPE) and the Bank of Spain in "many sectors", both in sectors with highly qualified labor and in sectors with lower qualifications.

"Years ago, with very high unemployment rates, the unemployment subsidy system incorporated social protection elements that, now, in the labor market we have today, we have covered with the Minimum Vital Income (IMV)," explained the Secretary of State, who believes that "it is time to make this reform" of the level of assistance to activate all workers who are receiving a subsidy.

"The reform is along those lines of encouraging reintegration and for all these people to take advantage of the opportunities that we now have and that are clearly going to be maintained and deepened in the future," said García Andrés.

This reform, according to García Andrés, is "fundamental" and "the missing piece" after the reform of active employment policies and the new Employment Law. "This piece of passive policies is fundamental to be able to make this reform of active policies effective," he insisted.

García Andrés considers that the objective of full employment, which "a few years ago seemed like a chimera", is now a "real possibility", with all that this entails: that real wages and productivity rise and that the structural deficit is reduced. .

"At full employment we will have a series of associated economic and social advantages that are fundamental, but for this we need additional reforms. We cannot fool ourselves. Spain continues to have an unemployment rate that doubles the unemployment rate of the European Union and we continue to have an anomalous situation," he declared.

The reform of the assistance level, on which the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Labor have been working for more than a year, is one of the priorities that, precisely, the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, cited during the inauguration of her position. last week.

It is also one of the reforms committed to Brussels in the Spanish Recovery Plan, linked to the fourth disbursement of European funds.

Also included in the investiture pact between PSOE and Sumar was the commitment to simplify and improve the level of unemployment assistance to facilitate access and compatibility of subsidies with a job, provide it with "sufficient" benefits and reinforce employment incentives.